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Marcos Jr. taking Filipinos for a ride

There is indeed a serious reason why Filipinos should be wary about electing Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. for vice president in 2016 national elections.

This warning for prudence is especially directed more to the young generation whose knowledge, nay, remembrance of the dark days of the Marcos dictatorial regime is sketchy, at best, and murky, at worst.

As the saying goes, “The apple does not fall far from the tree”.

Being a heartbeat away from the presidency will be a nightmarish thing for the country, if ever Marcos gets the voter’s nod.

Marcos may not have the acknowledged brilliance of his father, but just the same, being a chip off the old block, he is scheming as he is devious and he can very well take Filipinos, especially the young generation, for a ride.

An apt description of the young Marcos’ mentality is one given by former Commission on Human Rights Chairwoman Loretta Ann Rosales, saying, “The mindset he (Marcos) instills among the people is to keep them ignorant of the truth. It is the height of political arrogance and elitism, so much like his father.” (Rosales has been a victim of Martial Law having been detained and tortured).

The more that Marcos has become arrogant now after bragging that the people themselves do not care anymore about the past because the family had been given the clear political mandate to serve again and that there is no more need even to apologize for the sins of the conjugal dictatorship.

“I am the luckiest person that I know, and being a Marcos is part of that,” he said. “I have never felt it to be a burden. I have only felt it to be an advantage, a blessing, and I am very thankful that I am a Marcos.”

What the stuck-up Marcos is saying is that his father’s legacy is an added advantage that will help rather than diminish his chance of winning the vice presidency.

An example as to why I am saying that Marcos is apt in taking the Filipinos for a ride is his statement recently, saying, that he will not actively pursue the burial of his father at the Libingan ng mga Bayani if ever he wins the vice presidency in 2016.

Well, Marcos is singing a different tune now because he does not want to rock the boat, lest his smooth sailing for votes to be just a heartbeat away from the throne in Malacañang get disturbed.

But, wait till he gets elected, God forbids, and he will be pursuing everything that was taken away from them, including having his father buried in the hallowed ground of heroes.

For more about the young Marcos, below is an article culled from Sunstar, Cebu.

Bongbong Marcos’s gallFriday, October 30, 2015

By: Bong O. WenceslaoCandid Thoughts

SEN. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. is running for vice president in the 2016 elections, so I am not surprised that he is producing a lot of hogwash lately. He needs the hogwash to cover up the unpardonable sins his family committed during the dark days of the dictatorship (1971-1986). How could he win if the people remember?

Bongbong recently engaged President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III in a verbal exchange centered on the remembrance of the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. Aquino had asked the younger Marcos to apologize to the Filipino people for the dictatorship’s abuses. But Bongbong, like the other members of the Marcos family, would have none of it.

He would later talk about moving on, even vindication. He based this on the fact that after their return from exile after his father was ousted by the 1986 Edsa revolt, they—his mother Imelda, his sister Imee and Him–were able to wiggle back into government posts.

They started by controlling politics in Ilocos Norte, the bailiwick of the Marcoses, and Leyte, the bailiwick of Imelda and the Romualdezes. Then Bongbong ran for senator and, surprisingly, won.

Of course, the “vindication” claim is a mirage, considering the kind of politics this country has. But it has given the Marcoses in general and Bongbong in particular enough hope to believe they could take back Malacañang. Thus Bongbong’s vice presidential try.

But while times have changed and the atrocities committed by the Marcos dictatorship has receded from this nation’s psyche as post-dictatorship generations are taking over, I still believe that the good will eventually triumph over the bad. Bongbong would lose next year and he will never become president.

What is galling in all these is Bongbong’s flaunting his being a Marcos. Everyone is proud of his lineage, true, but when I read how Marcos said it, I could not help but grit my teeth considering how his family plundered the wealth of this country.

He started off with this one: “I’m thankful that I’m a Marcos. I congratulate myself for choosing my parents very well,” he told reporters in a press conference last Oct. 7.

He topped that with this: “Ang bait ng taumbayan sa amin. I think overall, I grew up to a privileged childhood because I am a Marcos. I was able to go to go to a good school because I’m a Marcos; I was able to enjoy the support of many people. It is all clear to me, it was a lucky thing to be born a Marcos.”

Then I remembered a facsimile posted on the internet of a page of a newspaper called the “Evening Independent” dated Feb. 26, 1986, the last day of the Edsa revolt. The article “Marcos’s Last Days Filled with Errors and Humiliations” written by the Associated Press’s Miguel C. Suarez had this passage about Marcos’s “inauguration” after the rigged snap elections:

“On Tuesday, only seven of the more than 20 members of Marcos’s Cabinet and only a handful of legislators from his New Society Movement party were on hand…In an apparent attempt to show some fighting spirit, Marcos’s son Bongbong, 30, and grandson Borgy, 3, attended the ceremony in military fatigues.”

Yet hours after that, the Marcos family had to be whisked out of Malacañang by the Americans to escape from the mob that later entered the Marcoses’ long-time residence. That mob ransacked Malacañang ang imagine what they would have done to the Marcos family at that time.

I am sure Bongbong wouldn’t have been grateful he was a Marcos had the mob gotten hold of them.”

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